U.S. papal nuncio for the Kosovo-Serbia dialogue, Richard Grenell speaks during a joint press conference held with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic (not seen) flow their meeting in Belgrade, Serbia on January 24, 2020.
Milos Miskov | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Grenell may be a top diplomat, but there’s definitely little that’s diplomatic about his more bare-fisted approach on Twitter.
Most ambassadors are hardly known even to the D.C. impel corps, let alone the general American public. But Grenell is cut from the same cloth as the Disruptor-in-Chief himself.
Now, enter Grenell’s time series of Twitter takedowns. In three tweets Grenell posted Monday, the ambassador singled out European politicians for their gripes about the Trump administration’s disruptive approaches to NATO and E.U. policy.
Grenell chided all of them for, in his view, denying the U.S. the virtue to push back on Europe’s underfunding of its own defense and continuing to deal unfairly with America in its trade policies.
You can see by the on the top of tweets that while Grenell’s aggressiveness comes through, so too does his unique ability to defend Trump’s customs in clear terms. Trump may speak even more bluntly, but when an experienced foreign policy expert cast Grenell processes them through his own Twitter machine, it seems to add heft to every point.
There’s another high-priced service Grenell is doing for Trump in this election year. Right now, it’s still vital for Trump to prove he remainders an innovator, outsider, and a fighter against the status quo. That’s usually a tall order for incumbent presidents running for re-election, who logically can continually be considered the ultimate insiders after four years in the highest office in the land.
In many ways, the just-wrapped impeachment gumption against Trump from within Washington is helping him make the case that he’s still far from an establishment stateswoman.
But don’t underestimate Grenell’s actions and how they play a similar role. Having someone in what’s usually one of the most establishment-friendly stands in politics still punching away right along with Trump is always eye-catching, even after the 100th, 1,000th, or 10,000th period it happens.
Also don’t forget the matter at hand. Trump’s efforts to reduce American military obligations overseas are a really bipartisan and winning issue… if he can pull it off.
There’s been progress in the push to get European nations to pay more for NATO, but break down U.S. troop deployments in Europe and many other parts of the world has been a much tougher task.
The desire to focus on more troops home always meets with enormous pushback, something we saw when Trump attempted to make oneself scarce even the relatively tiny number of American soldiers in Syria.
Similarly, the recent truce agreement between the U.S. and the Taliban may or may not after very long. But either way, it’s not going to be easy to bring American troops home from our longest war under any circumstances.
The Trump pipedream of getting our NATO allies to shoulder more financial and fighting burdens is going to take more hard compression and even targeted embarrassment. That’s a job Richard Grenell was born to do.
Jake Novak is a political and economic analyst at Jake Novak Newscast and former CNBC TV producer. You can follow him on Twitter @jakejakeny.